Mormon Coffee

A neat way to jump to a Bible chapter

He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.
Surely He has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed Him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions;
He was crushed for our iniquities;
upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on Him
the iniquity of us all.

-Isaiah 53:3-6

(Michael English, Steve Green and Larnelle Harris at Young Messiah.)

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Kris Frederickson, a MormonTimes.com columnist, recently wrote about Learning from others outside Mormonism. She wrote,

“My understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ has been greatly improved by the teachings of religious men and women over the ages, many of whom were never actually members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints…”

MS. Frederickson went on to quote noteworthy statements from a diverse group of people including a Catholic saint, a nun, a slave, Galileo, Gandhi, Muhammad and C.S. Lewis. At the end of her article, returning to the Restoration, Ms. Frederickson wrapped up with a quote from Joseph Smith:

“All the religious world is boasting of righteousness: it is the doctrine of the devil to retard the human mind, and hinder our progress, by filling us with self-righteousness.”

Ms. Frederickson concluded,

“We cannot be self-righteous and call ourselves worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Rather, tolerance and respect must be our watchwords.”

As I pondered Ms. Frederickson’s words, a sermon delivered by Joseph Smith on May 26, 1844 came to mind. In that sermon, testifying to the Saints against the LDS dissenters in Nauvoo, the Prophet said,

“I, like Paul, have been in perils, and oftener than anyone in this generation. As Paul boasted,* I have suffered more than Paul did. I should be like a fish out of water, if I were out of persecutions. Perhaps my brethren think it requires all this to keep me humble. The Lord has constituted me so curiously that I glory in persecution. I am not nearly so humble as if I were not persecuted…“Come on! ye prosecutors! ye false swearers! All hell, boil over! Ye burning mountains, roll down your lava! for I will come out on the top at last. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet. You know my daily walk and conversation. I am in the bosom of a virtuous and good people. How I do love to hear the wolves howl! When they can get rid of me, the devil will also go.” (History of the Church, 6:408-409)

How does Ms. Frederickson’s conclusion, “We cannot be self-righteous and call ourselves worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ” (based on a statement of Joseph Smith’s), correlate with the Prophet’s May 26th sermon?* Paul’s boasting, which he calls foolish and “talking like a madman,” is found in 2 Corinthians 11. Paul ends his “boasting” with these words: “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.”

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To read the entire May 26, 1844 sermon by Joseph Smith see here or here.

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I post this for all the ex-Mormons friends that I have, whom I love, who are struggling now with the idea of Christianity altogether.

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A larger version (800×536) of this image is available here.

Do any of you have questions about the conference?

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“And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.” Moroni 10:4

I was talking with a Mormon elder the other day. He challenged me to read the Book of Mormon (I have) and put the Moroni 10:4 promise into practice. Elder A. had just commented on the importance of LDS missionaries making an effort to understand, from a non-member’s perspective, what they tell investigators; therefore, I tried to explain a problem I have, as a non-Mormon, with the Moroni 10:4 challenge.

“Elder, this doesn’t seem like a valid test for me to use and here’s why. The Book of Mormon promises that if I ask God (while meeting certain criterion) whether the book is true, He will tell me it is true by the power of the Holy Ghost. But in order for me to believe the promise, I must already believe that the Book of Mormon is true. Because, if I don’t already believe the Book of Mormon is true, why would I exercise the promise given in Moroni 10:4? Why would I trust something that I don’t yet know or believe is true?”

Elder A. said, “You don’t need to believe the promise; you just need to do it.”

I explained that the book I do believe — the Bible — does not tell me to discover truth in the way the Book of Mormon suggests.

Elder A. quoted James 1:5.

I talked about the difference between praying for wisdom (as the Bible passage instructs) and praying to know if something is true (as the Book of Mormon instructs). I told Elder A. that I had prayed as I read the Book of Mormon some years ago, and that I believe God answered that prayer. With wisdom and discernment given by God, I came to the conclusion that the Book of Mormon is not true.

Elder A. informed me that of course I would reach a negative conclusion if I doubted or wondered if the book might be false. He said the honest investigator must pray with an open mind, with no preconceptions regarding the validity of the Book of Mormon.

“But Elder,” I said, “what you suggest is impossible. In order to use the Moroni 10:4 test, an investigator must begin with confidence that the Book of Mormon is true and Moroni 10:4 is an actual promise from God. Therefore, he cannot pray as prescribed in Moroni 10:4 with a completely open mind while bearing no preconceptions about the validity of the Book of Mormon. He is unable to do that because he must already believe the book is true enough to impart true promises from God.”

Elder A. disagreed. He did not want to discuss the matter further, so we let it drop.

But as explained by Elder A. this is really an impossible situation. Either an investigator believes the Book of Mormon and so “tests” its truthfulness according to Moroni 10:4, or the investigator questions the Book of Mormon, including the Moroni 10:4 promise, and thereby loses any ability to discover the truth.

Friends, the Moroni 10:4 truth test is a stacked deck. As good as it may sound, it’s simply not viable. I encourage you to consider instead the commended method for discerning truth as described in Acts 17:11.

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For further reading:
Burning in the Bosom
Praying About the Book of Mormon – Is it Biblical?

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